It is notoriously hard to be fired by our district. You pretty much have to punch a kid or play scrabble with a kid ... and even then. Word is that he's off to another school next year, this is known in our district as "the dance of the lemons."

Finally finished reding all 234 pages of this thread! Took me just under a week to finish this!

I have a story to share about my ex-student who became an ex-colleague.

Marianne was previously a student who spent a couple of years continuously failing all her exams. After her third appearance with the academic intervention panel, she was excluded from the program.

She went to another university, did a different course, and graduated. Then she applied for a job as an admin staff with our program. So far so good.

Now because Marianne was previously a student in this program, she is friends with many of our students, though most of them had graduated by then. However due to certain circumstances, some of her ex-classmates were still studying in the program.

Marianne, being now an admin staff, had access to student records which was given so that she could enter data of new students. She used her access to look at her friends' records. If that were not bad enough, she started talking to other ex-classmates, gossiping about how "Johnny was always boasting about getting highest grades, but actually he was just barely passing..can you believe that?" Or how "Max told everyone he graduated but he is actually still enrolled as a student!" Or "Wow, Jane failed Advanced XYZ Class three times!".

If that wasn't brazen enough, some of these discussions took place on Facebook. Where she had also friended me, several other academic and admin staff as well as her direct supervisor.

Until today, she still claims that she was let go off because her direct supervisor was jealous of her popularity.

There has been a big reorganization of our department - 3 smaller departments have merged into one. The Big Boss had a meeting with all 3 leadership teams about a week ago. One leadership member from one of the other departments was recently demoted (why not fired I'll never know) for gross incompetence. At the meeting with Big Boss he asked if she felt challenged in her job. Her response was that no she didn't feel challenged and was pretty bored by it all.

I'm thinking that Big Boss will be more than happy to help her find a more challenging position.......elsewhere.

There has been a big reorganization of our department - 3 smaller departments have merged into one. The Big Boss had a meeting with all 3 leadership teams about a week ago. One leadership member from one of the other departments was recently demoted (why not fired I'll never know) for gross incompetence. At the meeting with Big Boss he asked if she felt challenged in her job. Her response was that no she didn't feel challenged and was pretty bored by it all.

I'm thinking that Big Boss will be more than happy to help her find a more challenging position.......elsewhere.

There has been a big reorganization of our department - 3 smaller departments have merged into one. The Big Boss had a meeting with all 3 leadership teams about a week ago. One leadership member from one of the other departments was recently demoted (why not fired I'll never know) for gross incompetence. At the meeting with Big Boss he asked if she felt challenged in her job. Her response was that no she didn't feel challenged and was pretty bored by it all.

I'm thinking that Big Boss will be more than happy to help her find a more challenging position.......elsewhere.

Time to make popcorn.

Would you like some butter with that?

*Grabs a couple beers, a bottle of wine, some soda and the appropriate glasses*

Anybody need a refreshing beverage for the show?

Logged

Some people lift weights. I lift measures. It's a far more esoteric workout. - (Quoted from a personal friend)

This happened when I was a kid. Dad worked for a Pearl distributorship (a type of beer).It was purchased by a man that handled Miller. He intended to run them seperately but side by side. The man who was Dad's equivalent in the Miller distributorship did not want to have to work with Dad. Dad had come up through the ranks and did not have a Bachelors. But the owner had intended to run the two distributorships parallel.

Then Miller changed the rules. They had just hit as the most popular beer in Texas. They decided you couldn't handle a different beer (rules have changed back since). Boss planned on merging the 2 groups so no-one would lose their job[size=78%].*[/size]

Dad's equivalent had a fit, no way Dad could do the job without a Bachelors. He put his foot down and said he refused to work with Dad. Want to guess who got fired and who ended up the President of the company?

Later there was a man who was Dad's junior that had a similar attitude. His wife was mean to Mom. Boss didn't like that. Then Dad's junior sped up the process by trying to frame Dad and another employee for embezzlement Guess who got to go to jail. (Dad's signatures were copies - thing is Dad NEVER signed any legal document in black ink - always blue. He mentored the other employee who had the same habit. Boss knew straight way the documents were forged.

*Boss had very high ethics and stood by his employees - for example every employee warehouse to him and his wife had the same insurance - covered 100% of everything. My parents never paid a deductible - with kids like me and my sister both frequent fliers to the ER (peanuts reactions for me - being pushed out of trees by her best friend, dragged down the street by a dog, running into mailboxes for sis) it was a godsend.

This PD candidate is still a student, but the story is about some actual work he was asked to do:

My cousin runs a small law firm with just one other partner and a paralegal. The two partners decided they would offer an internship to local 2nd or 3rd law students. The winning applicant was tasked with two items his first week: mail some documents to another state by X deadline, and compile research on one minor point of law by Y deadline.

The intern not only failed to mail the docs until 2 days after that deadline, but the docs were immediately returned due to lack of postage. They had an office postage meter, the intern just never thought to use it. The intern did not understand the big deal, even after my cousin explained he would now have to overnight the docs at much higher cost as well as ask the judge for a continuance, which would probably not be granted.

As for the research, the intern put together a 28 page brief, which on inspection contained 20 pages copied straight out of the partner's memo on the larger subject (not cited). It was also two days late.

At his dismissal later that same first week, my cousin told him straight out that with his attitude and (lack of) skill set, he was unlikely to get hired unless he made some serious improvements (there is a serious glut of current law students and recent graduates, the job market is already brutal). The intern then tried to offered cousin some "constructive criticism" about his firm but cousin couldn't stop laughing long enough to hear him out.

My office is a very small part of a large university. We have satellite campuses around our area, and some of the offices at those campuses are very small, with only one or two full time staff.

One of the employees at my office (S) used to work at one of those small offices. As S says herself, it was a one woman show. She did everything, even things that are beyond the scope of her position. S has demonstrated that she still wants to do many things, such as answering questions, even when she: a, does not have access to the information required; and b, does not have the answers the student is seeking. I was in my office all day yesterday, except for one hour for lunch. S came and asked me to verify that she gave the correct information to the student that called about something that I or my boss would usually handle. Turns out that S gave the entirely wrong answer, and has been wrong about that very important piece of information since she began working at the university. When I gently corrected her about VIP information, she didn't believe me. Turns out that I was here during that conversation, but S was bored and wanted to talk to the student.

While it is not intentional misinformation, I believe that S committed PD in not checking her facts, taking a message or transferring the call to the pertinent staff member, me.

Logged

ďAll that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."-J.R.R Tolkien

It's kind of willfull misinformation, though. It would be easy enough for her to check with you that her info was correct, but she couldn't be bothered. I'd be horribly irritated with that kind of behavior.

Logged

Double MIL now; not yet a Grandma. Owner of Lard Butt Noelle, kitteh extraordinaire! True fact: Eggs can be just as hard to unload as zucchini!

We had to request maintenance on a piece of machinery that we rent.Since I do most of the care and feeding of said machine, I wanted to be there to learn more about the machine.Also, our policy is that we prefer that visitors not be unescorted.

Over the course of two days, the tech:

1) Parked in two parking spots of our front lot, driving in at an angle. There was lots of room to turn properly, and lots of spaces - he just didn't bother.

2) Came back and didn't park in a parking spot. Instead, he parked in front of the door. (We had to ask him to move his vehicle.) Again, lots of room to park, just didn't want to bother.

3) Showed up 2 1/2 hours after he said he would. Twice.

4) Came the second day in order to replace a part. Arrived without the part.

5) His small talk started with a commentary on world political events - in workplace-inappropriate language. (I bean dipped.)

6) When he *did* arrive back with the part, he said "I didn't have any in the shop, so I took this out of my personal machine. So you know that it works." Ummm. We just got a used part?

7) After my supervisor called Tech's dispatcher about his language, he didn't apologize. In fact, he continued to swear.

Left the correct screwdriver in his car (hence the swearing) and instead of getting it, used one of our kitchen knives as a screwdriver to repair the machine. I just gave him The Look and handed him the other screwdriver. I ignored his statement about how it wouldn't damage our knife.

9) In going back and forth to his car, he walked *through* the not-yet-landscaped-and-still-very-muddy area in front of the building. (Saved about 15 feet of walking!) There is mud on our stairs, the floor in front of my desk, in our carpets and all over the kitchen. He clearly used one of the chairs, because there was gobs of mud all over the lower rungs of the chair.

10) Dropped a screw down our sink, and left some random screws and washers on the counter.

Not impressed. Not impressed at all!

Logged

"I think her scattergun was only loaded with commas and full-stops, although some of them cuddled together for warmth and produced little baby colons and semi-colons." ~ Margo

9) In going back and forth to his car, he walked *through* the not-yet-landscaped-and-still-very-muddy area in front of the building. (Saved about 15 feet of walking!) There is mud on our stairs, the floor in front of my desk, in our carpets and all over the kitchen. He clearly used one of the chairs, because there was gobs of mud all over the lower rungs of the chair.

Maybe I'm just lucky that almost every place I ever worked had a "dragon" in the front office. She usually has a title like "office manager" or "big boss's secretary." She may not be able to actually breathe fire, but her stern looks can freeze miscreants in their tracks.

One engineering office also had surveyors. Surveyors are famous (infamous?) for getting muddy in the field and tracking it through the office. I saw the Office Dragon overseeing a couple young surveyors on their hands and knees cleaning up every bit of the mud they tracked through the office.

In another office, a different Office Dragon found the guilty party by following the muddy footprints. Not even freshly graduated engineers, who think they know everything, dare defy the Office Dragon.

Logged

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."

9) In going back and forth to his car, he walked *through* the not-yet-landscaped-and-still-very-muddy area in front of the building. (Saved about 15 feet of walking!) There is mud on our stairs, the floor in front of my desk, in our carpets and all over the kitchen. He clearly used one of the chairs, because there was gobs of mud all over the lower rungs of the chair.

Maybe I'm just lucky that almost every place I ever worked had a "dragon" in the front office. She usually has a title like "office manager" or "big boss's secretary." She may not be able to actually breathe fire, but her stern looks can freeze miscreants in their tracks.

One engineering office also had surveyors. Surveyors are famous (infamous?) for getting muddy in the field and tracking it through the office. I saw the Office Dragon overseeing a couple young surveyors on their hands and knees cleaning up every bit of the mud they tracked through the office.

In another office, a different Office Dragon found the guilty party by following the muddy footprints. Not even freshly graduated engineers, who think they know everything, dare defy the Office Dragon.

And this is why my DH, who is a surveyor, always always always has an extra pair of shoes in the truck that are NOT to be worn in the field. You do not mess with the office ladies. Ever.